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The Forest

Dir. Maryia Bulavinskaya | Poland | 2024
42'
Documentary

14, 22 november
online, from 00:00 to 23:59
Several true stories from the 1930s about Stalin’s repressions. One of them tells about a Gomel official who survived an execution in the infamous Novobelitsky (Chonkovsky) forest near Gomel.

According to archaeological excavations carried out in 1995, NKVD officers executed Soviet citizens in this forest.
In 2021, the 52nd Search Battalion of the Ministry of Defense began new excavations there. According to the official version, the forest contains the remains of victims of Nazism from World War II.

The Prosecutor General of Belarus, A. Shved, stated that the remains of several tens of thousands to possibly one hundred thousand civilians could be buried there.
The film is an investigation that presents evidence of the crimes of the Soviet regime.

It uses archival video and audio recordings featuring witnesses who recount the events of the 1930s.

About the film

Original language: Belarusian, Russian
Subtitles: English

Watch the trailer

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